The number of banks at risk of failing rose by 53 to 829, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp said in its quarterly survey of the nation's banking system. Thats nearly double the 416 banks that were on the FDIC's watch list a year ago and is up from 775 in the first quarter of this year. So far this year, 118 banks have failed, with 45 closings during the last quarter.

In other words, in the past two years, tax revenues alone would have proven insufficient by over half to fill the budget gap. In yet other words, the US Treasury is now the functional equivalent of the entire US population and then some, when it comes to keeping the US economy afloat. From another perspective, with an average take down of roughly 50% of each recent auction by Indirect bidders, nearly a quarter (half of half) of US budget deficit needs is funded directly by foreigners.

Should trade wars escalate, and should the US see an embargo of foreign debt participation, then overnight a quarter of US spending will be unfundable: this includes such critical key expenditures as defense and social security spending. Also, it is important to recall, that of the $3.35 trillion in debt issued over the prior two year period, the Fed has directly (via UST purchases) and indirectly (via MBS purchases, and thus the forced rotation of MBS securities into UST securities for agency holders such as PIMCO) purchased the other half.

Thus between foreigners, and the Fed, the US consumer's traditional contribution to funding the US economy has been diluted by half. And unfortunately, absent some dramatic deux ex machina, there is no chance this trend in which US debt issuance is the functional equivalent of taxpayer contributions, will ever end.

We are being told that such measures are needed to battle illegal drug traffic, to catch tax evaders and to fight the war on terror. But are we rapidly getting to the point where we will have no financial privacy left whatsoever? Should we just accept that we have entered a time when the government will watch, track and trace all financial transactions? Is it inevitable that at some point in the near future ALL transactions will go through the banking system in one form or another (check, credit card, debit card, etc.)?

The reality is that governments around the world are getting very, very sensitive about large amounts of cash and they are not messing around. They don't want all of us running around with big piles of cash. They want our money in the banks where they can track it, trace it and keep a close eye on it. On the one hand, it is a good thing to catch criminals and terrorists, but on the other hand how much privacy and freedom are we willing to lose just so that we can feel a little safer?

And as cash becomes criminalized, are all of us going to be forced into the banking system whether we like it or not? If we cannot pay for things in cash, what other choices are we going to have? The truth is that the more you think about this issue, the more disturbing it becomes.

In the USA, as Jeff Schnepper explained in an article for MSN Money, if you are in business and you receive over $10,000 in cash in a single transaction you must report it to the IRS or you will go to prison... If you're in a business and receive more than $10,000 in cash from a single transaction, or from related transactions within a 12-month period, you have to file Form 8300 and report the buyer to the IRS. Don't file, and you go to jail. The IRS isn't kidding. I had a client who was a dealer in Corvette sports cars. He told me he didn't have time to file the forms. I told him several times to file. He thought he knew better. He went to jail. So did his children who were involved in the business. This is very, very serious.

Now, there's nothing wrong with buying stock. My parents hold lots of BP stock, and they are hardly guilty of dumping the 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. But this is one more step in a long line of actions by the Gates Foundation in which it is advocating policies and agricultural technologies that will directly benefit and profit Monsanto while screwing over the most vulnerable people on earth: hungry subsistence farmers in developing countries.

I wrote a piece recently about what happens when American industrial agriculture collides with poor, uneducated subsistence farmers in the developing world and it ain't pretty. In fact, it's tragic. It's criminal. For a corporation to prey upon such a vulnerable population for its own gain, when the result is the starvation, continued impoverishment, or loss of land and lifestyle of the poor.

Perhaps Gates thinks he is doing something good for the world with his advocacy of biotechnology and industrial agriculture. No doubt all of the executives from Monsanto and other biotech and chemical companies tell him that every day. He should instead listen to the 400 scientists who spent 3 years performing the most comprehensive study of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology in the history of the world, the IAASTD report. The report recommends agroecology - what many in the US would refer to as "organics" (even though the term is more nuanced than that).

The priest admits that many will be "concerned" about metal lyrics praising Satan and mocking Christianity, but insists it is just a form of "play-acting". Miss Mann, priest-in-charge of St Nicholas's, Burnage, writes in this week's Church Times: "Since Black Sabbath effectively created it in 1969 by using the dissonant sound of the medieval 'Devil's chord', heavy metal has been cast as dumb, crass, and on occasions satanic; music hardly fit for intelligent debate, let alone theological reflection."

"And yet, as both priest and metal musician and fan, it strikes me that the Church, especially at this agonized time, has a serious gospel lesson to learn from this darkest and heaviest music." Miss Mann says that heavy metal songs, characterized by distorted guitar sounds, "intense" beats and "muscular" vocals, are "unafraid to deal with death, violence and destruction".

There have been Christian heavy metal bands, such as the 1980s American act Stryper and the more recent Evanescence, but few have enjoyed much critical acclaim or crossover success. By contrast many of the biggest heavy metal artists have used anti-Christian or satanic imagery in their lyrics and album covers. In the 1990s, followers of Norway's "black metal" scene went further by burning dozens of churches.

The Al Faw Palace in Baghdad is a relic from the reign of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. This Wednesday, it will be the scene of a significant moment in the history of American involvement in the country, when US General Raymond Odierno hands over the command of US forces in Iraq to his successor. The ceremony will mark the penultimate step of the US withdrawal from Iraq.

Only 50,000 US troops will remain in the country, out of a total of over 170,000 soldiers that were in Iraq at the high point of the American deployment.

They are staying mainly to support the Iraqi security forces as advisers and trainers, and are also due to return to their homeland at the end of 2011. No one expects much dancing in the streets of Baghdad this Wednesday. The streets are deserted these days. It is not only the infernal heat of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) which keeps people in their homes. It is also the fear of what will happen once the Americans are gone.

Visitors to Baghdad can sense the fear that many people have of a new civil war. That fear is underscored by the daily news reports on television. Last week, at least 56 Iraqis died at the hands of suicide bombers and snipers in around two dozen terrorist attacks. In August, an average of five policemen or soldiers died every day.

The decision to leave the country has not been called into question for one moment, despite the Iraqis' new-found affection for their occupiers, Corson says. "You can't please the Iraqis. If you're here, you are the evil occupier. If you leave, you are letting them down. Then it's better to just leave at some point."

They may now have to wait until 2014 before prices recover enough to make their homes worth more than they paid. The organisation, which campaigns for affordable housing, also said prices are still too high for many buyers. According to the NHF, house prices will dip again next year by 3%, before steadily climbing thereafter.

They expect prices to rise some 22% by 2014, bringing the average price of a house to 226,900 pounds. According to NHF chief executive David Orr, prices will "inevitably increase in the long term because of the huge under-supply of housing". But even at current depressed prices, he cautioned that houses remain unaffordable for most low-to-middle income families, thanks in part to tighter mortgage lending standards.

"There's a very real risk that an entire generation will be locked out of the housing market for the foreseeable future," he said.

"It would be inappropriate for us to comment about what actions Israel may take or how they will use their fuel," Marine Corps Major Chris Perrine, a public affairs officer at the Department of Defense, told WND. "I would note, however, that it would take a lot more than fuel to attack a country or wage a regional war."

"The proposed sale of the JP-8 aviation fuel will enable Israel to maintain the operational capability of its aircraft inventory," the notification to Congress said. "The unleaded gasoline and diesel fuel will be used for ground forces' vehicles and other equipment used in keeping peace and security in the region. Israel will have no difficulty absorbing this additional fuel into its armed forces."

By comparison, the last fuel order Israel placed with the US was July 15, 2008, when Israel ordered 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel, 54 million gallons of diesel fuel and 28 million gallons of unleaded gasoline at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion.

Prior to that, Israel ordered 90 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel and 42 million gallons of diesel fuel August 24, 2007, for an estimated cost of $308 million; and an unspecified amount of JP-8 aviation jet fuel July 14, 2006, for an estimated cost of $210 million.

Israel's last two military operations were the summer 2006 Lebanon War that lasted a little over one month and Operation Cast Lead in Gaza from December 27, 2008, to January 21, 2009.

In his role as a spokesperson for the Protest the Pope Campaign, Tatchell then went on with a long laundry-list of Church teachings, which he described as harsh and extreme. Tatchell has also been chosen by the television station Channel 4 to front a 60-minute program on the Pope, which will be broadcast around the time of the papal visit, the Telegraph newspaper reported on June 4.

It won't be the only television special critical of the Catholic Church. The BBC is working on an hour-long documentary on the clerical abuse scandals, the Guardian newspaper reported August 3. Along with the unsurprising opposition to the visit from the Orange Order of Ireland and Protestant preacher Ian Paisley, the British government also got caught up in an embarrassing instance of anti-Catholic prejudice.

The Foreign Office had to issue an official apology after a government paper on the visit became public, the Sunday Times reported on April 25. A document that was part of a briefing packet sent to government officials suggested that the Pope should sack "dodgy bishops," apologize for the Spanish Armada, and open an abortion clinic.

The attacks have not gone unanswered. Although not official representatives of the Church, a group of Catholic speakers was set up under the name of Catholic Voices. Under the leadership of Jack Valero, who is a director of Opus Dei in the United Kingdom, the team of speakers are offering themselves to defend the Church's teachings.

The residents complain that there are no schools, either, in the camps, and that many of the children have to work to sustain their families. Those who remain in the villages sell their belongings for food and require aid from the UN and the Syrian government. The World Food Program (WFP) has begun distributing food to more than 200,000 people who stayed on the farms, and the Red Cross is funding delivery of water to them.

"We don't want to provide assistance to these people where they are now, and create a dependency syndrome," says Muhannad Hani, WFP country manager, regarding the refugees who reached the camps. "Those people are farmers," he told the BBC. "We're working in partnership with the government to make sure that those people return to that place and resume what they've been doing for decades and centuries," he said.

Ginsters' communications manager Larry File said the process saves thousands of food miles in the long run. 'The way in which most companies work these days is that products for all supplies are sent to a central regional depot,' he said. 'Products needed for each local store can be sent on one big order and on one lorry.'

'For people who don't work in the food industry this may appear odd at first sight but in fact this system does save thousands of food miles. Without this, each individual supplier would need to deliver to each individual store, which would result in a great many vehicles on our roads.' Ginsters, which is famous for its Cornish pasties as well as sandwiches and pies, brands its products as 'real honest food'. And during promotions for the new Cornish store, Tesco even boasted that it was situated 'right next to the Ginsters bakery'.

Apples that suppress appetite could also be in the pipeline, with the first varieties on shelves within five years. Researcher Roger Hellens of New Zealand firm Plant & Food Research, said: 'Now we have the sequence of the apple genome, we will be able to identify the genes which control the characteristics that our sensory scientists have identified as most desired by consumers - crispiness, juiciness and flavour.'

The decoding of the apple's DNA has also shed new light on its origins. It suggests that a plant that became the apple tree was born around 65 million years ago, when a comet is thought to have wiped out the dinosaurs. The genetic blueprint comes after another group of scientists cracked the genetic code of wheat. More than 60 million tons of apples are grown worldwide each year - the equivalent of 20lb per person.

Although breeders try to cross the only the best plants, the slow growth of the apple tree means they don't know if have been successful until up to eight years later. Now breeders will be able to screen seedlings for key genes, vastly speeding up the process. Traits that hamper production can also be more easily bred out, the journal Nature Genetics reports.

Much as Chinese demand has driven oil and iron ore prices higher over the past decade, its imports of corn, wheat and rice could become a new force, pressuring up global inflation and giving farmers worldwide fresh incentive to boost output."It is inevitable that China will import more grains," said Yu Mengguo, a deputy general manager at Jinpeng International Futures Co in Beijing. "Living standards are going up and people need to consume more. What's worse, China has a lack of good land and water."

Scarred by memories of chronic hunger and bouts of devastating famine, China has defied its physical constraints in pursuit of food security over the past three decades. The government has spent vast sums on irrigation, pest control, grain reserves, the development of hardier crops and bio-technology research. The investment has paid off. With 9 percent of the world's arable land, China has more or less produced enough food for its own people, 21 percent of the world's population.

That is now changing. China first swung to a deficit in agricultural trade in 2004. Even though the rise in net imports since then has been incremental, this year has given warning that reliance on overseas production will accelerate in the future. China is already the world's biggest soy buyer and its demand for grains is picking up. Its agricultural deficit in the first half was $11.3 billion, nearly double that in the same period in 2009. A drought last year that hurt Chinese corn production is the main reason for the wider gap, but a big jump in corn shipments from the United States - the most in 15 years - is a sign of how tight China's domestic supply has become. In China's south, a shortfall in rice has led buyers to Vietnam. To get round import quotas, they have smuggled in nearly 600,000 tonnes of rice.

Sarrazin gave an interview to the respected Welt am Sonntag Sunday newspaper to promote his book entitled 'Deutschland schafft sich ab', which can be translated as 'Germany does away with itself'. In the book he claims the country is on the road to ruin because of the influx of immigrants from the Middle East which would overwhelm the indigenous population and create a nation of 'dunces'. In particular he singles out Muslims for failing to integrate and having low IQs.

This influx, he claims, has been going on virtually since the war while the birthrate of native Germans has been steadily falling. He asserts the result has been a 'dramatic fall' in literacy and numeracy. 'Germany is becoming more stupid,' he said. 'Muslims immigrants don't integrate as well as other immigrant groups across Europe. The reasons for this are apparently not based on their ethnicity, but are rooted in their culture of Islam,' he told Welt am Sonntag.

"This is a vital project for us as we begin to diversify our sales of strategic raw materials," Mr Putin said. "So far we have delivered most oil to Europe... The Asia-Pacific region has received insubstantial volumes." Russia began exporting oil this year from a new export terminal on the Pacific Ocean built to serve fields in east Siberia, one of the world's last untapped oil provinces. Some Kremlin-friendly oil companies have been granted tax breaks to speed development of east Siberian reserves and offset a decline in production in other regions.

Transneft, the Russian oil pipeline monopoly, completed the construction of a pipeline from Taishet in the Irkutsk region to Skovorodino last year, the first stretch of a planned 2,757km pipeline to the Pacific. On completion in 2012, the pipeline will be capable of carrying up to 1.6 million barrels of oil a day, about one-third of Russia's current exports.

Julia Nanay, senior director at PFC Energy, the Washington-based oil consultancy, said the pipeline would give Russia flexibility to focus oil trade on premium markets. "There is more money to be made by exporting to Asia than to Europe. By building the spur to China, Russia is acknowledging commercial realities," she said.